Home Sweet Home
by scribblernamedmeg
Summary: All Maitane wanted to do was go home, not get caught up in a war. Especially not when she's stuck in a time that's not her own and charged with changing history.


(A/N: Okay, so I know I haven't posted in _Two is good, Three is better_ in a while, but this has been running through my head since I watched King Arthur again. It's my go-to movie when I'm sick, and its usually on repeat so I can sleep through scenes without a problem.

Let me know if there are any grammatical errors, I've read through this once or twice, but I've yet to get a beta-reader, so there is always I chance I missed something.)

Chapter One

 _The Broken Wheels_

There was something soothing about riding through a forest on a bright day, sunlight filtering through the leaves, leaving dappled shadows dancing across the forest floor. Especially when at the back of what would otherwise be a noisy caravan. If she were close up, or even at the front, there would always be someone talking, either to her, or shouting comments to their friend further back.

Here, she was as far back as someone could go without loosing sight of the wagon or being an easy target for those who lurked in the woods. Sitting back in the saddle and letting the reins hang loose, knowing that the old mare would blindly follow the group, she closed her eyes and let the distant chatter ,along with the sounds of the forest, lull her in some kind of peace that had been hard to come by since she'd started traveling with the group she was currently with.

Before she'd managed to snag the nag she was currently astride at the last little village they'd passed, she'd had to ride the entire time in the wagon with the children and women. After a week of constantly being poked and prodded by the children, and being endlessly scrutinized by the women, who no doubt make snide remarks about her behind her back, riding on the back of an old horse with a bony spine was something akin to freedom. She knew what they all thought about her, a single woman traveling alone, wearing leather breeches under her split skirt, with nothing but a small bag of belongings and a staff she always kept at her side. She'd told them that she was a widow, after enduring many nasty glares from the merchant's wife and her spinster sister. While it was bending the truth a little, for she'd never been married, she considered herself a widow simply because part of her heart was missing, and it would stay that way until she either died, or the puckish entity that had brought her to this age decided that he'd had enough fun tormenting her that he sent her back from where she was taken.

She wanted to be sent back to the age where the only dangers whilst traveling through a wooded area was a stray animal, where there was medicine to cure a simple fever that would take a life here in this age. Sent back to a place where she wasn't so much of an oddity, where she knew a comfortable bed would be a guarantee at the end of a long day, where a pair of welcoming arms would be waiting for her as soon as she stepped foot into her home.

Biting back a sob, she clutched at the necklace she kept hidden under her high-necked tunic.

As soon as she'd made sense of the world she'd been dropped into, she'd traded the thin silver chain for a far sturdier braided leather thong, threading it through the simple silver ring and oval locket she'd been given by the man she loved. It would raise questions she didn't want asked if anyone where to see the intricate detailing on both items, so she always kept them tucked away, close to her heart.

God, how she missed him. She missed the way he would wrap his arms around her middle, not caring about the extra weight around her middle, brought on by stress-eating. She missed the way his dark eyes would light up when he teased her about silly things. She missed the simple kiss on the forehead when he thought she was sleeping. She missed -

Shaking her head to dismiss those thoughts, she opened her eyes and turned her face to the sky, using the bright shock of light to disguise the reason for the tears that burned her eyes.

There was no use letting the hard memories take hold. There was a reason she was here, and the sooner she got to where she was going and found out what the reason was, the sooner she would be back home, to where things made sense.

Focusing once more on the caravan ahead of her, she blinked away the tears and nudged the horse under her to rejoin the group, eyeing a little one hanging too far out of the carriage to be safe.

"Erbin!" she called out, the little boys head whipping around from where he'd been staring, his face breaking into a big smile as she slowed her horse next to the carriage.

"Maitane!" he called back, using the name that had sprung to her lips the first time anyone asked her name, unable to remember her own, but knowing it started with an M, joy making dark eyes dance as he reached a hand out. "Father says we are within a days ride of the wall!" he exclaimed, leaning forward just a little bit more, his excitement almost too much for his small body.

"Wonderful news!" Maitane replied distractedly, one hand held out to the boy, in case he toppled over. "Please don't lean so far out, Erbin, you might fall." She cautioned, eyes trained on him for the slightest movement.

"No I shan't!" the little boy laughed, shaking his wild brown hair in little boy glee as they rounded a corner, a clearing in the trees just ahead.

Maitane opened her mouth to refute the boy's statement when suddenly the wagon lurched to a stop, and Erbin lost his balance as the women inside yelped and screamed. Using muscles she hadn't possessed before, she clamped her legs around the mare's body and reached out with both arms to catch the falling boy, before he could be run over by one of the massive wooden wheels, hauling him onto the horse so he was sitting in front of her.

"What happened?" a nasally voice screeched, and Maitane winced. "Where is my son, Erbin!?"

"Here, mama!" The little boy replied, much to Maitane's relief, only to have that dashed as Erbin went on. "Maitane caught me!"

As pale hands scrambled to find the opening in the curtains, Maitane rolled her eyes and reached out a tanned hand to help the anxious woman, withdrawing her hand once the pale woman was visible, stringy brown hair teased beyond belief in order to have some semblance of a hair-do.

"While I should thank you for saving my son," the woman began, making Maitane sigh internally and brace herself for an onslaught of bashing, "I can't help but notice your filthy hands are on him. How dare a lowly peasant like yourself touch my darling!" she screeched, reaching out, skinny arms trembling with effort as she tried to grab Erbin off the horse and haul him into the wagon.

"Mama, Maitane is nice!" Erbin protested, latching onto her waist as his mother tugged at him, fingers digging into his arm.

"It's ok." she whispered to the small boy, gently detaching him. "Go to your mother, sweetling." she smiled at him, hands going under his armpits to hoist him up over the side of the wagon, into his mother's arms.

The glare that woman shot her as she heard what Maitane said was so venomous, she was surprised the woman didn't hiss and bare her fangs.

The curtain was shoved closed and she could hear the mother berating the child for talking to her, so Maitane headed up the line to where the wagon with all of the merchant's wares were housed, and found a group of the men huddled next to it, gesturing to the broken wheels. The front two had hit a large dip in the road and had broken in half, completely stopping the procession as they tried to figure out what to do.

Maitane didn't bother to get off her horse as she listened to the men debate, feeling more at ease knowing that if bandits or Woads were to suddenly appear, she had a better chance of escaping that if she were on foot. The merchant who had allowed her to travel with them was a portly older gentleman, who got around with surprising ease, considering the girth of his belly, and being of kinder disposition than his shrew of a wife, waved to Maitane, asking her to join the group when he noticed her hovering on the outskirts.

"What do you think we should do?" he asked, waving to the broken wheels and the clearing, much to the displeasure of the guardsmen he'd hired to protect them on the journey.

Keeping silent for a moment, she ignored the angry mutterings of the other men, and studied the area around them. While it was convenient they had a place to station the other carriage off the road while they waited for help to come, there was something niggling the back of her mind, causing her to dismount, lifting a leg so she slid off the side of the horse, much like one would slide down a slide.

Grabbing her staff from where it was held in place by a leather thong on her bedroll, she tossed the mare's reins over the side of the broken wagon and walked around to the front, the mare placidly standing in place, as if grateful for the moment to rest. Sweeping aside a fold of her dark green skirt, revealing tan breeches and leather boots, she crouched by a wheel, finger lightly tracing the dip, placed right in the middle of the path. Standing up, using her staff as a lever against her sore muscles, she slowly made her way to Orlo, the merchant standing in the middle of the crowd of men.

Tapping a man on the shoulder, she used his momentary distraction to slip into the circle to stand next to him.

"Well?" he asked kindly, putting up a hand to stop the other men from talking. Smiling briefly at the man who seemed to know that she was no ordinary woman of this time, she gestured to the wagon, the broken wheels and the dip.

"The wagon was stopped on purpose." She said lowly, not wanting her words to travel with the breeze that picked up. Glancing up to the sky, she mentally cursed in all the languages she knew as she noticed the approaching storm. "They knew a storm was coming, and with us being a day's ride from the Wall, we present an easy target." she concluded, not liking the look on some of the men's faces.

"Can you prove this?" Orlo's Captain asked, heavy brows furrowed and thick arms crossed across his broad chest. Maitane nodded, and without giving away what she was pointing to, motioned to the dip.

"It was dug, not created by nature." she explained, then noticing the deepening of the eyebrows, went on. "Also, look around us. This is the first clearing since we entered the forest, and those trees were not felled by old age or winds. They've been cut down. And just at the edge of a turn, so we can't see the road if we were to set up the other wagon in the clearing."

The group of men was silent as they took in everything Maitane pointed out, their expressions growing stormier by the second, echoing the encroaching storm.

"What would you have us do, woman?" the Captain asked, much to the surprise of his men. "If Orlo trusts you to make such observations, I would be a fool to not ask you the same." he explained, seeing the expressions.

"Get the fastest rider on the fastest horse as soon as you can, pray that he manages to stay in front of the storm and that he makes it to the Wall before we are attacked." she stated bluntly. "As for the wagon with the ladies and Erbin, have the driver put them on the other side of the road, under the canopy of the trees. There's a big enough space for the wagon just ahead. A few men who are able should move the broken wagon off the road to the clearing and make camp around it. The rest of the men should camp around the wagon so no one can get to the women without us noticing."

Orlo smiled and clapped his hands before turning to his Captain, who although still had the same scowl ( _she was beginning to think that was just how his face was naturally)_ , was nodding in agreement with her thrown together plan.

"You heard her." he barked, pointing to a younger man who held the reins of a white horse. "Get to the Wall as fast as you are able. Do not stop for anything." he commanded, then turned to a group of four men, sending them to move the broken wagon as best they could into the clearing.

The rest of the men followed Orlo to his wife's wagon, where Cesarea and her older sister Ionna sat with Erbin.

"What's going on?" Cesarea demanded shrilly, and Maitane was amused to see a few men flinch as her high-pitched tones hit their ears.

"We seemed to have broken the front wheels of the supply wagon, my dear." Orlo explained, heaving his girth into the wagon and settling next to his waif-like wife and reaching out to take his son onto his lap, patting the top of Erbin's head as the little boy yawned. "Not to worry, we've sent a rider to the wall, and thanks to the quick thinking of Maitane, we have a plan to see us through the night."

"You're listening to that wench?" Ionna spluttered, shawl shaking as the woman quivered in indignation. "You take her advice over your wife's?"

"Unless my wife suddenly has knowledge of how to hide a wagon and the men from direct confrontation of the Woads, I would be more that willing to heed her words." Orlo spoke, the jovial attitude that reminded Maitane much of a folk-lore from her home about a jolly man delivering presents one night a year suddenly dropped, and the hard man that this age crafted shone through, making Ionna flinch back and Cesarea pale as their situation fully hit them.

Smothering a smirk that was really not needed nor helpful at the moment, Maitane winked at the sleepy little boy and left Orlo to placate his wife and sister-in-law. Whistling lowly, she waited for the still-nameless-mare to walk up to her and grabbed the reins, motioning for the driver of the wagon to follow her down the path a ways, where true to her word, a hidden clearing past a row of trees offered them plenty of room to navigate the wagon into. While the men set up a hasty camp in a circle around the wagon, Meitane elected to set up her own bedroll next to a huge tree closer to the road, in the of chance that someone else rode by. If they were an enemy, she could warn the guards closest to her, and if help did come, she wanted to make sure they didn't miss their hiding spot.

Before she could even unroll her bedroll from its protective leather covering, the clouds darkened and rain started to fall, and she retied the knots that kept the oiled leather tied tightly. Tonight she would have to do without, and with a low sigh, she flipped up her hood, the deep pocket easily covering her head and face. The oiled material kept her clothes dry enough that she wasn't too cold as she settled onto a low hanging branch not bothering to start a fire, her staff propped up on her knees, the mare following her under the tree so the tip of her boots brushed the horses knees if she swung them.

From under the canopy of her tree, she watched through the heavy sheet of rain as a few of the guards scrambled to tie down the wagon's curtains and set up their own shelter, most of them giving up on trying to start a fire in this downpour.

As night fell and the storm worsened, she could only hope that she'd given the right advise. She didn't know why they'd listened to her, and if they lasted the night, the first thing she would do was ask the Captain why he did.

(Please let me know what you think!)


End file.
